Malaysia unveils six homegrown chips in push beyond assembly lines

Malaysia has spent roughly half a century putting other people’s chips together. Now it wants its name on the blueprint. On October 16, 2026, the country showcased six semiconductor chips at the Selangor AI & Semiconductor Summit. All six were developed by companies based in the Malaysia Semiconductor IC Design Park. They are part of a deliberate effort to shift from assembly and packaging toward chip design and intellectual property ownership. The combined estimated sales potential is RM300 million (approximately $74 million) a year. What Malaysia actually showed off The six chips target a spread of applications: artificial intelligence, automotive technology, satellite systems and drone operations. Three of the designs stood out. SkyeChip’s MARS1000 is built for edge-AI applications. Edge AI means running artificial intelligence directly on a device, like a camera or a sensor, instead of shipping data off to a distant data center. MaiStorage’s aiDAPTIV+ covers storage solutions. SiliconX’s FPGA is being touted as Southeast Asia’s first homegrown version, tailored for industrial and automotive use. An FPGA, or field-programmable gate array, is a chip that can be reconfigured a...